Dossier

A publication providing succinct biographical sketches
of environmental scientists, economists, "experts,"
and activists released by The National Center for Public Policy
Research.

Bruce Babbitt

Bruce Babbitt, President Clinton's Secretary of the Interior,
is a former attorney general and former governor of the State
of Arizona. Babbitt became governor after one Governor resigned
and his replacement died, leaving Babbitt the next in line for
the post. In 1988, Babbitt ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic
presidential nomination, failing to ever register in the double
digits in public opinion polls. But the contacts Babbitt made
while on the campaign trail reportedly helped him land his next
job -- as President of the League of Conservation Voters.

The League of Conservation Voters was founded in 1970 by Friends
of the Earth. Each year, it publishes a National Environmental
Scorecard, rating Members of Congress on their votes on environmental
issues -- or, to be more precise, on their support for more and
more regulation. In 1994, the League's PAC provided $777,717 in
donations to congressional candidates, 95% of whom were democrats.
The League's Scorecard and PAC contributions appear to be a powerful
combination: Members of Congress receiving donations from the
League of Conservation Voters' PAC in 1994 voted for the League's
agenda -- as measured by the Scorecard -- an average of 89% of
the time. Babbitt's tenure as the League's president may be most
remembered for a rather intemperate remark he included in the
introduction to the League's 1991 Scorecard: "We must identify
our enemies and drive them into oblivion."

As Secretary of Interior, Bruce Babbitt has been one of the Clinton
Administration's most unpopular cabinet secretaries -- particularly
in the West. Upon taking office he moved quickly to attempt to
raise grazing and mining fees on already economically-distressed
ranching and mining industries and created over congressional
objections the National Biological Service, a agency created to
assess the nation's biological resources that too often has --
as congressional opponents feared -- been used to violate landowners'
privacy and property rights. Babbitt also assembled a team at
Interior openly hostile to the resource-dependent communities
of the West. For example, George Frampton, Babbitt's choice for
Assistant Secretary of Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks was
a former president of the Wilderness Society. Speaking before
an Earth Day Press Conference in 1992, Frampton said, "...A
group of industries, principally mining, logging and... ranching...
for decades have enjoyed enormous federal subsidies to develop
and exploit the public lands... We're going to help the environment...
And they're fighting back. If you had a license to loot the federal
treasury, you'd be fighting to keep it too." One of Secretary
Babbitt's most controversial moves, however, was his apparent
assault on the Boy Scouts of America. Shortly after joining the
Clinton Administration, Secretary Babbitt reinstated a National
Park Service order prohibiting discrimination on the basis of
sexual orientation in the Service's Western Region. Under the
order, the Boy Scouts of America -- which does not permit avowed
homosexuals to serve as troop leaders -- could have been barred
from volunteering in the National Parks. Subsequent public outrage
over the Secretary's decision ensured that the Boy Scouts would
not be barred from National Parks.

Selected Babbitt Quotes

Babbitt on tolerance...

"We must identify our enemies and drive them into oblivion."
-Bruce Babbitt in his introduction to the League of Conservation
Voters' 1991 Environmental Scorecard

Babbitt dances with wolves...

"And it was a young Hopi friend who taught me that the
blue mountain was, truly, a sacred place. One Sunday morning
in June he led me out to the mesa top villages where I watched
as the Kachina filed into the plaza, arriving from the snowy
heights of the mountain, bringing blessings from another world.
Another time he took me to the ceremonials where the priests
of the snake clan chanted for rain and then released live rattlesnakes
to carry their prayers to the spirits deep within the earth...
I came to believe, deeply and irrevocably, that the land, and
that blue mountain, and all the plants and animals in the natural
world are together a direct reflection of divinity..."
-Bruce Babbitt, "Between the Flood and the Rainbow: Our Covenant
to Protect the Whole of Creation," December 16, 1995

Babbitt on the authority of the Scriptures...

"In Genesis, Noah was commanded to take into the ark two
by two and seven by seven every living thing in creation...
And when the waters receded, and the dove flew off to dry land,
God set all the creatures free, commanding them to multiply upon
the earth. Then, in the words of the covenant with Noah, 'when
the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember
the everlasting covenant between me and all living things on earth...
Compelled by this ancient command, modern America... forged
our collective moral imperative into one landmark law: The
1973 Endangered Species Act."
-Bruce Babbitt, "Between the Flood and the Rainbow: Our Covenant
to Protect the Whole of Creation," December 16, 1995

Babbitt on why the Scriptures have no authority...

"I went to Notre Dame where I learned the difference between
canon law and civil law. And I'm a Catholic, but I believe
that it is an ethical issue in which there are differences that
must be left for individuals."
-Bruce Babbitt on the campaign trail in 1988 to a reporter when
asked about his position on abortion

Babbitt's views on the Constitution, possibly explaining his views
on Fifth Amendment protections...

"[Judicial restraint is] a miserly and constricted assessment
of the highest law of the land. You can't read the Constitution
like a rule book."
-Bruce Babbitt quoted by the Arizona Republic, July 8,
1987